Sinharaja and the Cultural traingle
Source:Island
Excerpted from Rajiva Wijesinha’s Exploring with Ena
In 1983 I did not know what to expect from Ena. We went up by bus, me and Nigel Hatch who was a regular companion in those days. He was a tower of support in those difficult days and was great fun too on trips, game for any adventure as I had found when I took him along with my old friend from Oxford, Gillian Peele, on a delightful tour over the Christmas holidays
Within a few minutes of us arriving at Aluwihare, Ena asked whether we were willing to go off to the Sinharaja early next morning. There was no reason to refuse and so, after a fantastic dinner, the first of many, we were woken up at 2 am for the expedition, also the first of many.
Ena had a double cab which Sena drove. Apart from her and me and Nigel we also took along Suja her cook, and one of the girls from the Centre, Suwineetha, who was herself an Aluwihare, a retainer called Perumal and a dogsbody called Mani. This last travelled on top of the van most of the time for there was no room for him at the back, packed as it was with loads of supplies.
We drove through the night, not quite sure of our route, but after much cogitation over a map we managed to arrive at the entrance to the Sinharaja by mid-morning. There we found that we needed to have a permit. Things had clearly changed since the days when Ena had been an honoured friend of the Wild Life Department, but they did let us in for a brief walk. This was not however very productive so, after an hour or so, we decided to resume our journey and explore some more.
It was my suggestion that we go on to Deniyaya. I had heard. of the Hayes-Lauderdale Road and its scenic beauty, and Ena was quite happy to revive ancient memories. So off we went, lumbering along in the laden pick up, and night fell and lights started twinkling in the distance, and each town we arrived at turned out to be merely a village. It was around 9 pm when we finally got to the Resthouse at Deniyaya, only to find it full. The keeper took pity on us however, and said he had one large if decrepit room at the back which we were welcome to have.
So we spent the night there all together, Ena and Nigel and me and Suwineetha and Suja, and several dogs that crept in for warmth in the course of the night, as did Sena. He was far too distinguished to spend the night in the van as Perumal and Mani did. We were given a good dinner, and an excellent breakfast too, and were able to admire the fantastic view across the valley from what must be one of the best situated Resthouses in the country.
The next day was what cemented the friendship. I found Ena as keen as I have always been never to retrace footsteps, so we found another route back, across Sooriyakanda and Embilipitya. We decided then to have lunch at the Walawe reservoir and settled down there while Suja cooked a fantastic meal on a hearth she made up amidst the trees on the bank of the lapping waters. Nigel decided he would fish in emulation of the villagers and actually caught a few small creatures which were added to the meal.
Ena and I lay on the loungers she had brought along and continued to talk. We talked about her youth and her elopement, about Ossie’s DIGs and the coup of 1962, about S. Thomas’ and her relations, and everything else in the world. We continued to talk as we travelled on after that idyllic lunch, taking the road over the hills from Balangoda through Bogawantalawa. This was an indulgence which I had craved since, three years earlier, travelling with some friends from England, we had gone on this route against the better judgment of the driver and got stuck at a stream which was gushing too deep to ford. We had had to spend the whole night in the car, arriving at the estate in Dickoya we were due at after the waters subsided in the morning.
I wanted to prove that the route was not a bad one, and it certainly satisfied Ena’s and my craving for continuing adventure. Once more night fell and lights twinkled in the valleys, and we drove on and talked on while Nigel slept. We stopped on the way at the Bogawantalawa Resthouse, where some enthusiastic boys produced the worst coffee I had ever drunk — until the experience was repeated a year later, at mother Resthouse, at Vakarai, at which point we recognized the boys who had been transferred by then to the East.
Before the journey ended we had another epiphany. It was Wesak and as we passed through Geli Oya, between Gampola and Kandy, we saw the whole town celebrating, or rather all its young men, dancing vigorously in the middle of the road. It was an enchanting sight, even though it slowed us up considerably, Sena having to navigate very carefully, whilst the enthusiastic youngsters teased him by refusing to go out of the way, even while their grins as he shook his hoary locks made it clear they knew exactly how irritated he was becoming.
But we forgave them easily, and for Ena and me it was a sight we talked of for years, in reflecting about life in rural areas. It brought to her mind, she said, Ossie’s efforts to engage the police in community development, for he had told her how dull were the lives of the villagers and how it was important to provide them with entertainment and additional occupation.
We reached Alu well after midnight, two full days after we had set out, on what I still think of as one of the most important portant journeys I took in Sri Lanka. We had to leave the next day, but clearly this was a show that would continue to run. I had a friend coming out from England in July, and obviously Alu was the best place to which to bring him, not only to explore the ancient cities, but also if possible to do a loaf, as we thought of the journeys into unknown distances we booth relished so much. I had found a soulmate, and I belive Ena felt the same.
So when Nick, one of my best friends at Oxford during my last couple of years, arrived in early July to stay for three or four weeks, staying with Ena was a priority. Apart from that I had a very full programme arranged for him, beginning with the launch on the evening he landed of The New Lankan Review. I had decided to start the journal when Richard de Zoysa and I found ourselves out of jobs after being sacked from S. Thomas’ and occupied ourselves with teaching at a house in 8th Lane which my father looked after.
We wrote a lot while waiting for our pupils, while I had become familiar with the writings in English of other Sri Lankans for I had a radio programme to introduce poetry and prose which Richard would read. Those were days in which the social and academic elite looked down on Sri Lankans writing in English, and I believe my publishing some of this in the New Lankan Review, which I continued with for seven years more, proved a vital influence in making such writing acceptable.
I knew Ena would enjoy that first volume, not least for its account of my adventures at S. Thomas’ which I had called ‘Slippery Pantaloons’, since previously she had been overwhelmed by the criticisms of her sister and others who had heard only the other side of the story. But she was as interested in the creative writing, appreciative of the work of older polished writers such as Alfreda de Silva and Anne Ranasinghe but, like me, relishing most the sheer energy of Jean Arasanayagam. And over the years Ena and I would discuss avidly, which I could not do with my other relations, the writings I published.
Nick and I went up soon after the launch to Aluwihare, for me to present Ena with her copy of the Review, talk about which must have bored Nick silly over the next few days. Our first excursion from there was to Polonnaruwa, and I still remember our pre-dawn start which allowed for breakfast on the banks of the Parakrama Samudraya before exploration of the sites. We had a long day thereafter, though with a break for lunch, lying under massive shady trees while the waters lapped at our side. Ena paced herself sensibly, getting down only at places she particularly relished, avoiding the sun as much as possible.
I was reminded of that first visit nearly a decade later, when I took her to see Polonnaruwa lit up at night through a project I administered for the British Council. It had been designed to develop the place as a site for night visits, to encourage tourists to stay in the area, whereas they were used to travelling from the bigger hotels some distance away on day trips. Sadly the Cultural Triangle administration was not able to focus on this aspect, a problem I found endemic in Sri Lanka, since planning so as to involve a number of different agencies and aspects was almost impossible.
The Cultural Triangle made up for this deficiency however by unstinted graciousness in agreeing to command performances for anyone we suggested. I did not quite think it correct to ask for one for my aunt, but I thought it would be acceptable when the mother of Scott Richards, who had done much work for us at the British Council, was visiting. My good friend Nirmali Hettiarachchi, who had also done much work for the Council, was with us too that evening, February 14, 1991, and we had a delightful time watching Fria and another formidable old lady working out how to cope with each other.
Those nights were magical. The Consultant we had hired had a most fantastic eye, for stone as well as for greenery, and he lit his subjects up in different ways, bright focus on gateways and statues in some temples, highlighting of columns and carvings in the central area of image houses, spotlights from amidst greenery on the looming palace. Ena walked more than she had done for years amongst the ruins, and was also deeply appreciative of the fact that the Gal Vihare, one of the most impressive sights anywhere in the world, had not been obtrusively highlighted.
The Project had also included work at Anuradhapura, and I remember dropping in with Ena one morning on Raymond Allchin, an old and distinguished and self-opinionated British archaeologist who was working on site there. Not entirely absurdly, he felt that the Triangle was not spending enough time and money on careful analysis based on field work, but his patronizing approach had to yield to Ena’s long-standing familiarity with the site.
I only realized then, as she talked of the times she had spent there when her father was Government Agent, the comprehensive role such officials played in the days before increasing specialization led to restrictive compartmentalization. Obviously we cannot go back to the days of gifted amateurs, but it is a pity that the wide-ranging interests and commitment of officials of an earlier era, based on a strong sense of responsibility, cannot be revived.
The encounter with Allchin was in July 1990, when I was administering two programmes for the British Council that involved travel in Ena’s vicinity. One was the Cultural Triangle project, another was to provide furniture to schools. This had originally been for rehabilitation work in the North and East after the 1987 Peace Accord, but when war broke out again we could not continue to work in the three Districts originally selected, Vavuniya and Trincomalee and Amparai.
But we convinced the British Overseas Development Administration that they should allow the money to be spent in neighbouring Districts that had been affected by the war. In addition to Amparai I proposed Matale and Matara, both of which were areas I loved, and had good reason to visit. Matale was ideal for the entire Cultural Triangle, and I had spent the Thursday I left Colombo looking at what our Consultants had done with the Queen’s Bath and the proposed Interpretation Centre in Kandy, before going on to inspect furniture in nine schools in the Matale District. And then I stayed at Alu and Ena accompanied me to Anuradhapura next day to see Allchin and his protege Robin Coningham. But the best part of that day was having on the shores of the Basavakkulama Tank the picnic lunch which Ena had packed for us.
